NewsMonitor Editor's Review

NewsMonitor is an application designed to help you keep up-to-date with the news in all your areas of interest.

This program can be used as an automated news reader. You can use it to retrieve the latest news from around the world as soon as they have been published.

Using the program is quite simple: fist of all, you need to specify a list of keywords according to which the crawler will search for news. The program will start searching for the latest news as soon as you add a new keyword or change a keyword. The news will be retrieved from some websites. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an option where I could customize the list of news Websites. The keywords can be exported or imported from XML files, but they can't be edited. You can add, edit or remove keywords.

The news will be displayed in a list containing the time of publishing, title and the exact URL. Underneath, in a larger space, you will be able to read the news' abstract. You can set the program to pop-up a balloon tips containing news. Clicking on it will open the original URL where you can read the news in full.

The news can be acquired using a scheduler which will automated the process as often as you want it. When updated news have been retrieved, the program can play a sound or display a desktop alert.

Pluses:

Drawbacks / flaws: There's no option to edit the list of Websites; no RSS feed reader.

In conclusion: In my opinion, this software only does half the job for which it was designed.

version reviewed: 3.0